Empowerment and women in adventure tourism : a negotiated journey

Women’s participation in adventure tourism is growing, yet few studies have explored this group of tourists. This conceptual paper seeks to extend our understanding of female adventure tourists by examining the empowering journey women can take through constraint negotiation to enjoy the benefits of adventure tourism. Using content analysis to review the literature on women’s adventure experiences in tourism and recreation settings reveals prominent themes that have been consolidated to propose constraint, negotiation and benefit categories. A conceptual model is presented that illustrates the opportunities for women’s empowerment within these categories and examines the interrelationships and interdependency between them. The model shows that constraints, negotiations and benefits can be experienced simultaneously, at different points in a woman’s adventure tourism journey and used as a vehicle for empowerment. Women will also re-evaluate these categories before, during and after their adventure tourism experience. Therefore, the categories are not fixed and evolve each time a woman participates in adventure tourism throughout her life. Suggestions are made for further study in this under-researched area

Partnering to Enhance Education and Public Engagement Programs

Collaborating with partners is a fundamental aspect of the Lunar and Planetary Institute's (LPI) educational and public engagement efforts. Such partnerships enable scientists and educators to include members of the audience in program planning and execution. Ultimately, partnerships strengthen programs by providing diverse resources, expertise, and expanding the potential audience

Women's mountaineering: accessing participation benefits through constraint negotiation strategies

The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategies women use to negotiate mountaineering participation constraints and the resultant benefits from participation. Survey responses from 321 female mountaineers produced four constraint negotiation dimensions and three participation benefit dimensions using confirmatory factor analysis. Three of the four negotiation dimensions support earlier findings in the literature on women’s experiences of adventure activities. The identification of a fourth dimension relating to ‘confidence and adaptation’ represents a new contribution. Similarly, the three benefit dimensions largely support existing literature. However, some benefits loaded on different dimensions to what has previously been reported and verifying the influence of each negotiation dimension on specific benefit dimensions also represents an original contribution. Therefore, this study extends our understanding of female adventure participants and quantitatively verifies women’s constraint negotiation and participation benefits in the context of mountaineering. Accordingly, this study makes an important theoretical contribution to the understanding of women’s adventure experiences in mountaineering, which may be of interest to others researching female participation in other adventure activities. The findings also suggest that mountaineering is a space that is being used as a means to resist gendered expectations and to gain empowerment

Challenges to Field-Based Outdoor Research: Pitfalls and Possibilities

Research and evaluation in field-based outdoor settings are often needed to assess program outcomes and ascertain ways to improve programs as well as add to a broader body of knowledge. Although outdoor programs foster an array of important outcomes, research in these settings presents challenges. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore the pitfalls and possibilities of field-based outdoor research. Examples of some of the issues encountered in field-based outdoor research include: theory-testing in an applied setting, research that spans multiple sites, garnering support from program staff, Institutional Review Board approval and other ethics issues, designing effective staff training, the appropriateness of instruments in field-data collection, uncontrollable events on site, and the role of parents in longitudinal studies. In each of these areas an explanation of the possibilities and problems are articulated related to these issues

The Impact of Camp Employment on the Workforce Development of Emerging Adults

The literature indicates a workforce readiness gap exists for both high school and college graduates. Findings suggest that employment in residential camp settings is one way to encourage positive workforce development. While a large body of literature supports the developmental benefits of camp for youth, fewer studies have investigated the impacts of camp on camp staff. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the impact of camp employment on the development of workforce-related skills and to identify the elements and processes of camp employment that facilitate or impede this development. Given the deficiencies noted in the readiness of the emerging workforce (Casner-Lotto, Barrington, & Wright, 2006; Lippman, Atlenza, Rivers, & Keith, 2008), it is important to identify contexts and experiences that can promote workforce readiness among emerging adults. Camp appears to provide the types of experiences and benefits that would position it as an effective workforce-development context. While the majority of camp-related research focuses on youth participants, a growing body of literature, including the present study, supports the importance of understanding the impact of camp on camp staff. In this qualitative study, researchers used a focus-group methodology to collect data from 21 individuals who had worked in a variety of camp settings. Study participants described a range of positive impacts associated with camp employment that have direct implications for workforce development, including gains in skills related to interpersonal interactions, communication, problem solving, and leadership. In creating a camp environment conducive to workforce development, special attention should be paid to the factors and processes at camp identified in this study that both hinder and facilitate staff development. Facilitators of positive growth included developing intrinsic motivations for working at camp, being forced out of ones comfort zone, participating in the supportive camp community, and receiving positive feedback. Constraining elements included long work hours, working under poor management, and personal relationships among staff that reduced focus and engagement. When structured correctly, camp appears to be a prime context for the development of essential workplace skills. Camp administrators can use the information presented in this study to structure the employment experience for their emerging adult staff in ways that will make camp an important stepping stone in their workforce development path